Some months after fascinating everyone with this crossover’s new generation, Hyundai now surprises the media once again by releasing the extended version of Santa Fe, whose name is expected to become “Grand” just like the French minivans Citroën C4 Picasso and Renault Scénic, and even the Brazilian sedan Fiat Siena. The Korean becomes very interesting because what may seem like only a long-wheelbase option actually has an entirely different proposal. This article will show how prepared it is to accomplish that.
As it was mentioned in the five-seat version’s article, these cars represent Hyundai’s “post-revolution” moment. After stabilishing the Fluidic Sculpture language with plenty of success, Santa Fe brings a much more elegant interpretation of what’s seen on Elantra, Veloster or even ix35. And since the automaker wants to give a higher-quality impression to the customers, it’s necessary to make bolder investments. North America seems to have started dropping the vans in favor of the bigger crossovers, maybe for their off-road abilities or even just to abandon the boring family-look for a subcategory which is starting to resemble tougher and “cooler” station wagons.
Some of those would be Ford Flex, Toyota Venza or VW’s future production version of CrossTourer concept, all of them with more than five seats. In Hyundai’s showroom, this category was supposed to be covered by Veracruz, but since it was received as nothing more than a bigger Santa Fe and ended up with bad sales, the automaker decided to take this reputation by the good side. They didn’t insist on using a new name and even avoided the other extreme of these possibilites, which would be only stretching Santa Fe Sport. Therefore, as in almost every decision in life, avoiding the extremes turns out to be the best option.
Looking at these two Santa Fe explains why Hyundai will call them Sport and Grand, in some markets. While the front lights are the same, Sport’s grille shares Sonata’s tridimensional effect to highlight the central area, while Grand brings bigger size and chrome painting to create a more solid style. The sides have even different back doors, because Sport uses a smaller third window while Grand’s bigger size imposes a more classical shape. Even the tail lights escaped the money-saving decisions, with Sport using an irregular shape like ix35 and Grand opting for a more elegant design. The cabin, on the other hand, received only functional changes.
The same very attractive design seats two more occupants and bigger trunk space here, with seats that can be folded in several combinations to optimize the available space. This car will also bring lots of technology items for comfort and safety, but focuses on a more classical concept, with plenty of coating colors and some wooden details. Grand Santa Fe will only feature a gasoline Lambda II V6 3.3L with direct injection, producing 290 hp and achieving 21 mpg consumption. This car will always use a six-speed automatic transmission, and the announced towing capacity is 11,000 pounds. The US market will have it in four trim levels, with the first one starting at US$ 28.350.
Lançamento no Brasil (21/02/2014)
Mesmo aparecendo no mesmo evento que as linhas 2014 de Elantra e i30, a mais nova versão do Santa Fe passou longe de chegar despercebida. A variação Grand troca o desenho esportivo do modelo original para se dedicar às famílias grandes, oferecendo um conjunto mais focado na praticidade de uso cotidiano que nas habilidades fora-de-estrada. Seu desenho agrada pela elegância imponente, e substitui o Veracruz sem deixar nada a desejar. Além disso, a novidade não deve afetar as vendas do Santa Fe comum com sete lugares primeiro por conta da diferença de proposta de ambos, e depois por causa do preço: custar R$ 187 mil lhe deixa em uma distância considerável do irmão menor.
Sua vocação se mostra no pacote completo de itens, que inclui bancos em couro, central multimídia com GPS, DVD e conexão Bluetooth, direção elétrica e bancos dianteiros com regulagens elétricas e aquecimento. Já os demais assentos são bem fáceis de suspender e guardar, mas mesmo que isso não seja feito o carro oferece 383 litros de porta-malas – sua capacidade máxima é de 2.265 litros. Sob o capô está o mesmo 3.3 V6 de 270 cv usado pelo Santa Fe, que trabalha em conjunto com o câmbio automático de seis marchas para levar um carro de 1.832 kg. Já a segurança é garantida por airbags frontais, laterais e de cortina, controle de tração e tração integral sob demanda.